Religious practices (1117 Subjects)
Pagodas at the kingdom of Tonkin (Vietnam). In the foreground, gymnosophists and priests in ceremonial dress doing their prayers.
Carriages with livestock and other provisions leave Hanoi. They are destined to feed the soldiers and other followers of the funeral procession of the king of Tonkin (Vietnam).
The Virgin of Iber (Bleeding Vrefokratousa). The icon was kept at the Gate of the Resurrection (today part of the Red Square) in Moscow. According to the tradition, the Virgin bleeds because she was stabbed in the cheek by an iconoclast.
View of the first palace of the Tsars at Kremlin, Moscow. In the foreground one of the now-lost monasteries of Kremlin.
Fountain at the remains of church near the sea walls of Topkapi palace in Istanbul. According to the author, the Greek Orthodox of Istanbul would come to the fountain on the feast of the Transfiguration. Several of them would bury themselves in the sand and then drink from the holy fountain, thus realizing a symbolic transfiguration.
The lunar eclipse which the author watched during his stay at Mosul. In the foreground a mullah explains to a Western European, possibly the author himself, the high importance of this phaenomenon to Muslims.
Celebration of the feast of Huli in Kabul. The feast, a remnant of pagan cults, lasted the two days of the full moon of February. On the second day, the inhabitants of Kabul would gather at the central square and destroy a gigantic effigy made especially for this festivity. The feast closed as a child, symbol of the new-born god, shot his arrows at the giant's heart.
